Andrew Norris

Searching for 'Teddy' Norris

2010-06-04T14:24:00.000-07:00

Searching for Teddy Norris

As told through the words of
Bernard Osborn
Jack Pickles
Norman Walton

B.O. -Well not at that time it was more afterwards
I think later on when we were back home we would say,
‘Do you remember old Teddy, he was always Teddy?’
It’s your Dad but to me and to his pals he was always Teddy.
In fact it wasn’t his name, was it?
A.N. - It was Dennis, Edward was the middle name.

Dad
Dennis
Edward
Teddy

Which name would you answer to now?
Which of these names is you in this picture?
This picture of you gazing
Into the flames of a fire
Sometime in the 1950s.
What are you thinking of here?
Where have you gone in this picture?
And where did you go that night in September, 1944?
We all looked for you, groping in the dark
Following that line of white tape
And the trail of your blood
Down to the river bank.
We looked for you but in the confusion and turmoil
We lost you among the many casualties.
I can hardly imagine the experiences you had
As you, looking youthful and smiling in
Your pilot’s uniform, could have had no idea
Just what was waiting for you in Arnhem

B.O. - It was quite a time in history, if you like to put it that way,
A.N. - Of course,
B.O. - And yet it only lasted from June to September
And such a lot..,’ ‘But a defining moment.’ ‘..went on.’

They taught you to fly in an old Tiger Moth
And later, a horsa glider.
And from your peers you learnt
What camaraderie meant
These comrades who are more than just
A few names written on an old, Dutch bank note.

Bernard Osborn
Jack Pickles
Norman Walton
Sam Wellard

Their names still resonate and after more than 60 years
They speak to me and through their words they reveal
Something of the person you were in your youth
When you were less than half the age that I am now.
But that night, in the dark, we all lost sight of you.

B.O. - No, I first met Teddy some weeks before when I had finished my training and he, either he was needing another co-pilot to go with him. First and second pilots, basically, but we became friends, to each other, friends and co-pilots. And so I met him first of all at Brize Norton not all that long just a few weeks before D-Day, this is probably why I am more attached to Teddy than the average two chaps might have been because he was the older, the senior man and he brought me along quite well. Anyway, we were at Manston when we took off on Sunday September 17th for Arnhem

That Sunday morning you took off from RAF Manston, a member of ‘B’ Squadron one of 56 heavy gliders each laden with troops, jeeps and artillery

A.N. So you and Teddy, you landed. Where were Jack Pickles and Norman Walton at this point?
B.O. Where would they be?
A.N. –Yes
B.O.- I couldn’t tell you exactly because we had all gone our way from now onwards we were in small numbers
A.N. Were they a part of your numbers?
B.O. Oh yes, the same numbered flight, nineteen flight.

Jack Pickles - ‘It was a terrible night, very dark,
And raining heavily.
The area was dominated by the Germans,
And we were under shell fire.
And intermittent machine-gun fire.
After some casualties we reached the river,
But before we could get across
We were quite heavily mortared.

B.O. We had to go from where we were, which was in Oosterbeek down to the river bank where hopefully we would be picked up by some little boats that had come along so far, and that happened in due course. We all had our jobs allocated to us. Teddy was one of those who was standing by the white tape that sees people down to the river. I was put in charge of half a dozen Poles, we didn’t understand each other in the least bit but we followed each other and we got across the river alright.

A.N So, at what point was Dad injured?
B.O. Dad was injured in, as we were coming down chaps were filing down past him to go to the river.
A.N. -I see

J.P. Quite a lot of our men swam across
Despite the strong current. I did not go that way
Because my pal, Staff-Sergt. Norris, was wounded
And I stayed with him until we could be taken across
In an assault boat, when I helped him to a medical dressing
Station about a mile away.’

B.O.- That was the last time I saw Teddy. Quite a momentous four months

And that was the last occasion
That any of your friends
Were to see you.
The last known detail of your whereabouts

One morning in late 1944
Grandfather unfolded the local paper
And found this article on the front page.

In walked the Sergt. From Arnhem
They were still talking about the epic of Arnhem
In the “local” on Friday night when in walked
Sergeant Norman Walton, wearing the wings
Of a glider pilot. There was a short silence.
Drinks were forgotten. His tunic was stained,
His haversack in tatters. He came straight
From the ‘Patch of hell’, that was Arnhem.

Concluding his account of the battle he went on,
‘One of the queerest incidents that happened
During our fight was when Staff-Sergt Ted Norris
Bought a German limousine for 15 cigarettes.
The car, unfortunately, was mortared the next day.’

He added that although you were wounded
You got back safely.
It was the first news Grandfather had had
That you were still alive
And after numerous enquiries
Learnt that you had been hospitalized
And were convalescing here, in Scotland.
Six months later you returned home.
By which time the world had moved on
And contact with your old friends, lost.
‘I had a good war.’ I remember you saying
By that you meant you had survived.

* * * * * *

17th February 2005
Letter to Martin Norris, older son of Ted

Dear Martin
Pleased to receive your letter. Yes, I am the ‘Jack’ Pickles
Mentioned in the cutting. Delighted to learn your
Father has survived to old age, like me at 84.
Give him my best wishes.
My recollections of that dark, wet night
When we withdrew from our slit trenches
On the perimeter about the Hartenstein Hotel
Are still vivid. It was a planned withdrawal,
Moving silently in single file around the perimeter
Before striking out through wooded country for the river.
We were heavily laden with arms
And rucksacks and followed a white tape
Laid on the ground.
Nearing the river, we left the wood
And began crossing open water meadows
Much small arms fire, tracers, but the single mortar round
That dropped on the column took us by surprise.
Teddy went down, several of us clustered around him,
Someone applied a shell dressing to his wound
To staunch the bleeding.
My co-pilot, Sam Wellard, and I improvised a litter
From rifle straps and together we three staggered
To the river bank. Flimsy folding boats
Manned by paddling Royal Engineers
Arrived at intervals and the boarding orders in all this confusion
Was that wounded had priority.
When a boat beached nearby
Sam and I struggled to lift Teddy over the gunnels.
Sam hung back, crossing later.
Crossing was hazardous,
The river was racked by machine gun fire,
Water slopped into the overloaded boat.
Reaching the bank we scrambled ashore
And staggered a few yards (and) started
Walking up rising ground the several hundred yards
To farm out-building being used as a Forward Aid Post.
Here I delivered Teddy to the care of the R.A.M.C.
Ensuring that they knew who he was
And the location of his wounds.
At no time do I recall any complaints from Teddy
Yet he must have been in great pain and fearful.

7th April 2005
Letter to Martin Norris from Norman Walton, South Africa

Dear Martin,
Your letter of 4th march arrived… Let me say how pleased I was to have your letter. Jack Pickles had already written advising of your approach….Yes, I remember your father well and am pleased to know he is alive and well – in spite of the smoking! Please give him my regards. We shared some incredible times in the regiment and of course our Arnhem experiences will always live in our memory. But we were the lucky ones, we survived!

9 December 2005,
Letter to David Brook, the editor of The Eagle, from Bernard Osborn, Bromley, Kent

Dear David,
I was very interested to read the obituary written by Norman Walton. I was sorry to learn that Jack Pickles had died during the year. Delighted to know that Norman, Sam and John are well.
The other person mentioned in Norman’s letter was Teddy Norris. I was Teddy’s co-pilot on D-Day and at Arnhem.
He was (is?) a great chap. Most capable
And at Arnhem we were never more than a few yards apart
Until the evacuation over the river on the night of 25th/26th September. Teddy stood by the white tape guiding people down to the river.

23rd January 2006,
Letter to David Brook from Teddy Norris, Great Yarmouth, Norfolk

Dear David,
I am the Ted Norris mentioned by Norman Walton.
I am quite sure if it had not been for Jack and Sam
Getting me across the river, it is doubtful
I would have survived since I spent 6 months in hospital
Thanks to them and hospital staff in the UK I am still here.
January 2006,
Letter to Teddy Norris from Bernard Osborn, Bromley, Kent

Dear Teddy,
Today I received a letter from David Brook giving me your address. I had written to David after reading Norman’s letter in the Dec(ember) 2005 edition of the Eagle, in which your name was mentioned. In my letter I had stated that I was your second pilot on D-Day and Arnhem, and that I had endeavored to contact you.

A.N. - But you had tried to find Teddy
B.O.- Oh yes, nobody seemed to know. It was only when the 50th anniversary came up ( in 1994) that I really thought much about it again and also renewed my efforts to see if I could find anything about Teddy
A.N. - So when you found him 60 odd years later what did you think?
B.O. - Oh, I thought it was wonderful really. We had a lovely chat for about half an hour on the phone, and of course had we known that he wasn’t going to live much longer I’m sure we would have made earlier date to meet.

May I remind you of a little incident at Oosterbeek in 44? I’ve earned more than one meal on recounting this tale! …We were huddled in our two man slit trench. We were being heavily mortared. Suddenly there was a clanking and squeaking of tank tracks and nearby too! You perked up instantly and said “A tank, come on lets get it!”

B.O. - … He said, ‘It’s a tank alright,’ he said, ‘let’s go and get it.’ So, I said, ‘What?’ He repeated his question. I said, ‘Teddy, haven’t we got enough trouble here without going and chasing a blooming great big tank with just rifles in our hands?’ ‘Please yourself.’ he said, somewhat irritated. So, I thought, well, that’ll be the last I’ll see of Teddy I’m quite sure.
A.N. - So he went off in pursuit.
B.O. – He didn’t get anyone else interested, not unreasonably. Anyway about half an hour later he came slumping in sat down in the slit trench. ‘Well’, I said? ‘It had gone by the time I got there.’ he said, most irritably.
It was a blessing wasn’t it. You’ve had him another 60 years, after that, didn’t you? You certainly wouldn’t have done , What chance has one little lad with a rifle have against a tank
A.N. - How did he mean to capture the tank? How did he think he might succeed?
B.O. - Well, one way is, of course, if a tank commander commands his tank properly he really has to have his head out of the turret and I expect he thought that if he got the tank commander he might have thrown things into disarray and the chaps in the tank wondering what they would do next

31st March 2006,
Letter to David Brook from Bernard Osborn, Bromley, Kent

The Finding of Teddy Norris

Having found Teddy Norris after all these years it is very sad to report that his son has told me of his death in hospital. Our reunion was not to be but he was able to see the April, Eagle, article on our locating each other before he died.

Although my brother, Martin, managed to track down and make contact with Dad’s comrades after an absence of more than 60 years we, unfortunately, never did quite manage to reunite Dad with Bernard or Jack, Norman or Sam. But they were, at least, all aware that each had survived to old age. We owe them all so much.

The Sparrow's Tale

2010-03-02T08:52:00.000-08:00

The Sparrow’s Tale

It looked like a star, bent low,
Below the horizon by the wood’s edge.
A wedge of light from a window high in a barn
At night it would glow and I would feel its pull,
Pulling me away from the dark in which I lived,
(A dark as dark as the deepest bowl in a beech tree trunk)
Pulling me away from the cold and the snow.

I held that shining star in the corner of my beady black eye
And one day took the plunge and flew head long through that gap
Where the light shines, where the feasting humans herd.
And then I was there, flying between beams like branches held up
By bolt upright timbers like trunks reaching up
To the twiggy rafters inside was lined inside
Like the outside with gleaming threads of golden straw

How my feathers shone! I couldn’t stop singing. But strange,
Humans living in upturned nests. I gasped in surprise to see them
Flocking there and when they me espied their twittering ceased.
Mouths hung open like hungry fledglings. The fire
Pinned their crackling shadows high upon the lime-washed wall.
I took in the prickly air and the wide eyes that followed my excited flight,
The satiated dogs that barely moved from the flickering hearth.

And then it all began, such squawking and clucking
And the clattering of steely-knives stabbing the table
Impaling all manner of meats lost in a cloud
Full of feathers from startled chickens. One human barked
And leapt upon a perch on the fully laden table
Scattering crumbs, (such rich pickings!) I was tempted to rest
And to take some nourishment there but an arm swished

To snatch me from the pungent air mid-flight up turning
A great plateful of precious water that splashed and showered the
One who gleamed with such an exotic plumage that the droplets
Sparkled like jewels in a crown of light. I held that moment
Struck in awe. This was for surely a nest for the gods, I was able
To reflect before returning from whence I came.
Brief is my life and a humble sparrow has no place at this table.

The Lament of the Oak

2010-01-03T20:03:00.000-08:00

The lament of the Oak

(Bird song can be heard)

Listen, can you hear that?
That sound celebrating the new day
Once fill all my waking moments.

That song heralding the end of a long night
Sung to the open air to where the sound would stretch out,
And gently fall to earth like the downward spiral
Of a sycamore wing.

The Spring saw my tree feathers unfurl
And Summer bore throughout the forest a rich store of fruit and berries
For the seed-thief to plunder, and enrich its song.
I was moved in my surroundings, a part of everything that grew
I was blessed by the sunlight that reached out
Touching the forest floor with a quiet ecstasy,
And in such moments I would remember what the Ancestors had said:

Once, when the trees of Holmwudu
Were at rest inside the forest
A light appeared above them in the air
It penetrated deep below the canopy
And hooked itself to their roots, alighting in a clearing.
A presence rippled in the undergrowth
And the trees struggled to comprehend it.
‘This light is surly our salvation’
The mighty oak then said ‘We should yield’, so they did,
The light space remained and the presence passed over
And out of the mystery that couldn’t contain it.

I managed to survive the Great Storm and in times of short water
Learned to conserve my energy. But when a dark cloud
Came to rest above my crown the birds took flight.
Then a searing pain struck me like Winter.
I felt the surrounding meadow lean in and press the air, heavily.
I could smell the earth. I felt the void where my roots had clung to the soil.
A wide gap in the sky had opened and was funnelling blackened air.
I shuddered and I bore my silver-leaf underside to invoke the rain.

When I awoke I felt a warmth
And a breeze, a breathing
From one who held me in his hand
He had a knife and with it he was whittling, carving, quietly.
And as I began to take shape
I began to resemble the one-who-carved.
Heavy was he in thought as if the trunk of the mighty oak itself
Lay across his shoulders. Was that why in me
He carved the image of himself
With eyes closed?

And the more he carved the more
He began talking to me, and I heard words like, 'friend'
And since he understood my longing
To return to the wood he gave me back
My two outstretched branches with their 5 slender twigs
And I began to hope that the birds would come back
To nest in my arms.

But, for a long time I was held in a long lasting night.
I was pale, I was cold, I was shivering.
Then I heard noises
But nothing of the like that I had heard in the forest, but gradually they
Became louder until suddenly
I was overwhelmed by a great gust of wind
Like that of the night of the Great Storm.
I tried to let my branches be carried along
But I saw that my limbs had been
fastened with great thorns.
I was surrounded. Surrounded by a plague of shouting
And jeering in a language I did not understand.
They hoisted me up above their heads and a light blinded.
I was spun around, disorientated.
I wanted to cry out but without the leaves I had no voice
And had I cried out who would have understood my voice?

I felt at that moment a visitation of all the evil of the world
beyond the forest. And beyond that instead of trees, people
A crowd, surging and swelling like the Great river
They looked at me. They looked into this face
That the one-who-carved had given me
And they tried to find themselves reflected in this face
And leaning forward, they outstretched their arms like branches
To touch me and force upon me their vision
But it was a vision not of my world,

It was a vision of such horror, of fire and flames.
I could see their suffering, their jealousy, their vanity,
I saw how they cheated and deceived one another
Corrupted anything that was treasured
Yet through that pain they sought to find in me salvation,
And then they began pleading with me.
And I heard words like, 'father',
And then I saw myself in that vision
And they told me that I was the source
Of all wisdom and knowledge
And I began to lament
How we had become estranged.
I wanted to cry out,
'You people have brought this all upon yourselves.'
I wanted to tell them
'Look into your own heart.'
It cannot be made of stone.

And then as if far off rising above the cacophony
The song of the seed-thief returned
But this time it wasn't just the one voice, but many
And the many voices were singing together.
And they were singing together
As if they were singing as one.

Fourth version

Four Anglo-Saxon Poems

2010-01-01T12:08:00.000-08:00

Four Anglo-Saxon Poems

Through Anglo-Saxon verse we ascend to the source of the English language where words are rooted in things and full of meaning...perhaps more so.

These poems were inspired by the Anglo-Saxon sense of playfulness, found particularly in the surviving riddles, and exploit a variety of end and internal rhymes to create cycles of repeated sounds around a collection of concrete images

Poem I

The wood some trees
As well as these

A well, a wood
As well they would

The wood as well
As the trees

Poem II

On the brow of a clough
Sits a chough on a bough

Three brothers in a rough
Take turns at the plough

A boat on the lough
Is lost in a trough

And the sough of the wind
Is more than, more than enough

Poem III

The wild wind wanders
Round the old wintery wood

Wondering whether
It would waken the weather

Winding its windy fingers
Round the old wold world

Poem IV

The field leaves its yield
To the breeze in the trees

And the hedge at the edge
Yields to the leaves

In the heart of that hedge
By the edge of the wood

A fledgling sings, concealed
While a herd in a field

Lifts its head
To a bird on the wing

That heard nothing
But could, see everything

* * * * *

Poem II Glossary and pronunciation guide

Brow: \ˈbrau̇\ before 12th century, the projecting upper part of a steep place
Bough: \ˈbau̇\ before 12th century, a branch of a tree
Plough : \ˈplau̇\ 12th century, an implement used to cut, lift, and turn over soil.
Sough: \ˈsau̇ before 12th century, to make a moaning or sighing sound

Clough: \ˈkləf\ Dialect a gorge or narrow ravine
Chough: \ˈchəf\, Date: 13th century, an Old World bird related to crows
Rough: \ˈrəf\ Date: before 12th century
Enough: \i-ˈnəf, before 12th century

*Lough: \ˈläk, ˈläḵ\ 14th century of Celtic origin; akin to Old Irish loch lake
Trough: \ˈtrȯf before 12th century : a depression (as between waves or hills)

*Clearly not Saxon in origin

Kolinje - the slaughter of the pig

2009-12-13T05:28:00.000-08:00

Pig hangs by its hind legs splayed out
on a wide frame. A single slit splits the
underbelly open, opening up to the
outside its warm, steaming interior all
reds and succulent, shining and wet
spilling out into well versed hands
cutting and carving, weaving a polished
tip between bone and cartilage severing
stretched tendons with a snap and
paring flesh from fat. All is carefully
sorted and dispatched, just a small
sack of bitter, black fluid is discarded.
By the end only a suggestion of pig
remains, recognisable, its tail uncoiled
and pale.

from FIELD SONGS

Field Songs, parts VI & VII

2009-12-10T04:05:00.000-08:00

VI

More sky appears (Still so warm)
Between each limb (I could be deceived)
As trees cast into the wind
Their bronzed, autumnal leaves (For thinking it is spring)
Edged in burning red
And black decay
Colours almost singed (Colours changing)
For want of cooler days.
From their summer greens.
Rich mossy greens
And blue tinted lichens
Vibrant shades
Of ochres and orange
The season’s
Wind-blown wreckage
Remains. (Remains of leaves)
(Lie scattered in drifts.)
Ankle deep mounds of (Ankle deep mounds lie)
Lobed edges oak, (Under the oaks)
Serrated lime (And the limes.)
And smooth walnut
All long abandoned
By their branches.

I’ll take a rake (I’ll take a rake)
To tidy up (And sweep them up)
And burn them (And burn them)
Scenting the air (Filling the air)
(With plumes of)
(Brilliant white smoke)
With that acrid smell
(In an otherwise)
(Flawless sky.)
That is autumn.

VII

The fires are lit
And the fields glow

The evening sun (The labouring men)
Brightens the wall (Work in silence)
(In their unfenced acreage)

In the room (Burning stubble)
(Each in his field)
Where the colour (Where the slow wound)
Deepens (Deepens)
(And the blood)
To a crimson.
(Stiffens in the veins.)
The floor boards (The earth con-
Creak underfoot -tracks underfoot)

Unsettling the dust.
Viewed from the window
The folds in the valley
Open like a book
(Breaking the spine.)
Where the unwritten lines
Linger in the wood smoke
Hanging in horizontal layers.

A sapling senses the end of Summer

2009-11-24T02:08:00.000-08:00

I

These beaded threads of morning moisture
Stretched across our hardening antlers
Come upon us in our sleep and we seem to be sleeping longer,
Longer since our leaves have left us.

Heavy in the dark they become lighter as the light up-rises.
This binding silk is not bondage to us
But through it we detect little tremors in all our parts.
When that happens it is like the wind but not the wind

But like the wind it stirs us from our light-green reveries
Since we know that sound of something airborne all too well.
It has been around us, everywhere, while it has been warm.
A kind of singing that is not singing, just coming and going,

And sometimes we feel the sensation of a sudden shudder
Which shakes these sparkling crystals and then the singing stops And while they fall there is a moment of silence
That is taut and tense in which we wait to hear them shatter.

The Clerks' Well, Clerkenwell, London

2009-11-23T05:25:00.000-08:00

The Clerks' Well, Clerkenwell (in memory of Jane Wisner)

Rest a while, traveller
And imbibe at this well

Present long before any human presence
Sought to haul me up
From a hole, deeply bored
In the ground, I lay undiscovered

Until a fissure cracked the earth
And sent me rippling out over bright stones.
Since when I became sacred, appropriated
And around me all life congregated.

There wasn't a time when I didn't exist.
I came into being at the very beginning
And my molecules still carry the memory
Of that moment across the whole globe.

I am that cloud caught drifting
Across the plains of Tanzanier.
I am crystallized in the frozen wastes
Of the Tundra

I hang in the misty humidity
Of the Rain Forest. Irrigate
The tea hills of the Himalayas.
Plash in a fountain in Tivoli.

I have quenched the thirst of a goatherd
And trickled down the face of the one
Who had dug this well.
This well, where all these waters coalesce

Around which the whole world pivots
Will be remembered, well.

1st version

Searching for William Blake

2009-11-20T01:47:00.000-08:00

An apple anticipates an afterlife

2009-10-06T01:21:00.000-07:00

XIV

We cannot account for our arrival
Such mysteries lie buried in
Between the lines drawn out
In the field’s arable acreage.
Resting in stillness,
Warm repose, warming to touch
Our sensitive hearts. Our vital instinct
Is strong, it means our survival,
Yet when we asked we were simply told
‘It is just so.’ And so it is.
There is, however, something we all share
Of that we are aware, at least.

We have seen the seasons turn
We have seen the foliage unfurl,
Unravel and return.
We have felt the sway and the pull
That touches us all.
We have felt the swelling
That bends the bower with our weight,
Feeling out on a limb we wait and wait
Growing evermore desirable.
What is it we feed upon to make us thus?
And when the furs and feathers feast on us
Is it then that we loose ourselves to oblivion?

Of the one that is me, I yield.
I yield forsaking my others.
I yield to the ache that comes with age
Assuaged only in a moment of weightlessness.
For this, I yield.
The grasses are waving.
The horizon is approaching.
All is as it should be.
For the one that is me
Departure marks a new beginning.

CHALK - a meditation on place and identity

2009-09-28T07:52:00.000-07:00

1.

It fits well in my hand
Lacking sharp edges
It is warm and dry, holding the heat of the earth
As I turn it around it becomes smoother
Leaving traces of a fine, white powder
That fills the lines in my hand
The life line
the head line
the heart line

2.

This piece of chalk has no grain
I cannot tell how it lay in the ground
How it was built up layer by layer of once living organisms.
Creatures imprinted with a memory
Of a time passing through the Cretaceous period
A time of hills and mountains rising from seas
Ending with extinction.

3.

A fragment of chalk
Gathered from the eye of the White Horse at Uffington
Gathered from an eye which has for centuries
Stared up into a revolving sky
Your lithe, sinewy form I have heard you galloping
Your hooves hammering the Downs, foal of Lascaux
I have stood with the Long Man
High upon the hill's ridge
And surveyed the forested domain on the lower levels
Where the deeper soil allows trees
To get a root hold and establish themselves
I have stood with poles in hand
Finding an alignment between the point left
And the place yet to be reached
I have pitched my tent in the hidden hollows
In the valleys, in the dense, broad leaf woodland
And woken at night to the sound of the sea
Welling up from deep underground
The wind cuts my boat adrift
As waves crash through the trees overhead

4.

In a field somewhere a fossil has been found
Fragments of flint, an arrowhead, a line kiln
Excavated on these undulating hills
Where settlements were founded, industries forged
Stone age
Bronze age
Iron age
How far it has traveled
That it should now come to rest in my palm as my inheritance

5.

Each time I walked upon the Downs
I left a layer of memory and identity
Embedded in the chalk.
Scumble the surface of the Downs
And find it through gaps in the scrubby grass
It lies close to the surface there.

6.

I turn this fragment around in my hand
It reaches the tips of my fingers
And the tip of the chalk touches the ground.
I make a mark, a line that will link the meridian points
Of my own history like a constellation of stars

7.

I am standing in a field
Surveying the space around this
Point where my feet are taking root
The plough has drawn deep lines
Musical staves through the earth
But has not revealed the presence of chalk
It has no place in this field,
In the formation of this geology.
This piece of chalk I brought here
It gleams against the up turned top soil
And finds its place
The outline acquires form
Pigment of ochres and earthen stains
Add a richness of colour
The earth regenerates itself and absorbs
All that is discarded
Its scent is the scent of decay, but a decay
That nourishes growth and inspired
A faith and a belief in the industry of soil.
I will draw a line in the earth
And here I will dig, and dig deeply
Deep down through its many layers.

9th December 2008

A Canterbury Tale (epiphany)

2009-09-23T13:51:00.000-07:00

The Stones of Dalmatia

2009-09-18T01:48:00.000-07:00

The stones of Dalmatia

Rest a while, traveller,
And observe these stones

Interlocking, convoluted shapes. Curves, convex and concave.
Holed by the constant course of an underground water source.
Wedded to age , sunbaked, parched, chiselled by the wind
And richly patinated to a sculptured grey whiteness
Seeming as lifeless as a cairne

These stones are the measurement by which this land is divided,
And enclosed. Here fields were cleared and walls were raised up.
Within these enclosures fields produced the first rich harvest
Of stones, before the vines could cling to the thin soil
And bear fruit. All abandoned now.

Who remembers the labour of the field
Who can remember hearing the chime of the mattock
Striking stone.

Stone,
Millenii spent in a slow state of restless turmoil.
Originating deep in the cradle of the liquid earth.
In our lifetime we have witnessed that final push that lifts
Them from the soil's grip. Stones take on another life
In our hands but what do stones care for our intention.

We have a rhythm and a pulse
A skilled hand selected, placed
And replaced each piece to find
The point where the polarities

Are aligned. Where two stones
Touched there the pulse vibrated
Across the void and we became
One entity, again.

These rocks, raw material, the building blocks of cities and
Monuments, these living stones that enable us to reach out
And touch the hand of our ancestry are here all distilled
Into this intimate shelter,
A sanctuary

HOUSE, a poem for two voices

2009-09-14T05:33:00.000-07:00

HOUSE

It must have been a meter high, at least
The grass, the hedge lost in front of the house
Through which we pushed
To reach the door
And this is home.
On either side the plaster cracked
Exposed a sight not seen
For nearly 50 years of
Bricks and stones stacked one
Upon another with my bare hands, plaster rendered.
Hollows in the field where I pulled out stones
I filled with trees and more trees putting down roots
Wondering if I should see many to maturity.
Trees which have been neglected
Now need pruning or removing
Since their yield has been
Exhausted as I was stacking bricks on stones
Day in, day out to build my house, my home.
Well cut some down and plant others.
Well rebuild walls using his tools
The axe, the shovel, the saw.
I built walls and planted my orchard.
Four years since they fell into disuse
For years since I left the fruit upon the branch
The grapes on the vine simply wither and fall.
Are not to our taste,
But well keep the old apple
Propped up with branches and magical
Under which we pass still fruits, miraculously,
Finding our way through the orchard
Entering another world
Following a well - worn trail
Quietly, through the orchard
Down to the spring.
Down to the waters source.

How the sea appeared to the stones

2009-08-04T05:37:00.000-07:00

All stones hum,
Some deeper than others
Sunk deep in the earth under us.

We keep an ear to the earth
And listen to the stones,
Cradling them with our roots.

The stones have stories too;
Stories of seas,
Of seas leaving

And leaving land, seas
Like windy grasses
Waving in fallow fields

Like big skies
Lying under big skies
Above.

The leaves are reaching up
Into big sky above.
We want to know

Tell us, tell us all you see,
Is there, anywhere
Big sky below?

from An ear to the earth II

Of what we vines are most afraid

2009-07-27T07:26:00.000-07:00

Tendrils twisting up limbless trees,
Our season's growth holds on to
Our dead, expressionless companions,
Rootless, yet sturdy,
Pushed deep into the soil.
Who knows of their silent aspirations
To spread a branch, some leaves?
Carrying our fruiting lineage
We emulate their staked-out intervals
And cling for support, since we need you.

Do you look upon us with envy?
Our leaves cast great shadows
That our companions could only dream of.
Reaching out along a trail
We've spent years mastering.
Contorting our trunks into shapes
That are not straight or rigid
But as if to say, ''We're alive, we're alive
Admire the fruits of our labour''

It consumes all our strength
To divulge this wisdom
And each year we are cut back to conserve our energy.
Each year is our new beginning
Until one year we shall be cut back completely
When we are no longer yielding
And become, like you,
Unyielding.

from An ear to the earth, V

A tree contemplates its own mortality

2009-07-09T10:53:00.000-07:00

It was like,
How shall I put it?
Like the first lightening strike
Or the moment a storm cloud bursts?
No, much closer.

The first swing of an axe
Sending a convulsion,
An electrical charge
Through the forest floor
Through every fibre.

How can you prepare
For the as yet unknown?

And when a light space opened up
Touching the forest floor,
Where the shady things grow,
I knew then
That there would be no rest.

An ear to the earth, X

.

How the leaves learnt to speak

2009-07-08T03:38:00.000-07:00

It is the wind
that gives us

our voices we
chattering leaves

are full of whispers
sighing , breathing

leaving the forest
ripe with rumours

as we collectively
exhale.

An ear to the earth
IX

The secret in the soil

2009-07-03T00:19:00.000-07:00

What goes on up there above in the light
space we have no names for or know
what shape such seeds take on where
our skin is exposed to all the elements
suffering every condition yet we give
seeds life but are not life itself me we
us soil and the seeds that seek shelter
all manner of things have grown here
in the dark in the turmoil of our acidity
and alkali seeds in stony layers
between which roots thrust their searching tips
prising and worming deep into our soul
and where only the drip
drip of liquids
penetrates deeper and deeper still.

.

An ear to the earth, VIII

The conspiracy of ivy

2009-06-30T12:12:00.000-07:00

By the field's edge we grew
Long time undisturbed
Edged by ploughing
Observed the breaking clods
Long time looked over
A distant edged distance
Watched the sowing
The reaping
The ploughing
The sowing
And all the time
About our trunks
Grew a deeper green
Than we'd ever seen
Creeping up
Stealthily,
Slowly,
Slowly,
Suffocating.

.

Poem VII from the collection
An ear to the earth

.

A butterfly alights on a leaf

2009-06-23T00:28:00.000-07:00

Why do you copy in our dead colours
When we struggle so hard for life
Even last year's leaves still wave and rattle
Yes, even we saw the winter through.

How easily you melt into our surroundings
Sunning your wings just long enough
To alert us here of the dangers there...
Just the thought of it now makes us all shudder.

from An ear to the earth
VI

The waking sensations of brackens and long grasses

2009-06-21T11:15:00.000-07:00

Gaps appear when dark descends,
When the nighly sun is up,
Pushed between up brackens and long grasses.

Tramping on, me
Snuffling for seeds and berries.

We sleep soundly, undisturbed.
We rise up from earthly-dark earth
And simply unfurl each frond.

Sometimes a marking passing
Remains, me scenting soft earth.

Undisturbed, but for waking sensations
Of a not-seen having brushed against
Our stalks, caressingly.

.

from An ear to the earth III

The Vision of the Oak

2009-05-13T06:23:00.001-07:00

Listen
A measureless time the deepest of visions came to me
When all human voices rested in sleep
It seemed I beheld the mystery of the Wood.
It was a marvel touched with rays of golden light
Shining like jewels stretching to the four corners of the forest
Radiating throughout eternity. I observed it
Saw the fiery glow in the glory tree.
It ran through all creation a beacon of splendour
A magnificent, perfect light. And through that radiance
I was able to witness when it first began.

And as I began to grow there
The most ancient of ancient trees began to speak.
'It was long ago but still I remember
My roots at the forest's edge.
I too saw the world's edge the light of the world
Throwing out rays of perfect light
Before the sky darkened and the Earth was once again
Cast in shadow veiled under clouds.
I witnessed it all.'

Vision, strength of my oaken heart deliver this message
That my soul is urging me upwards
I hardly dare move. Gradually my solitude is relieved
But still I have to endure the sensation of longing.
The time will come for me to honour
The whole glorious creation from the canopy above
To the ground below worshiping this beacon
More than all other trees. My life's hope
Is to seek out that triumphant Wood
And become that most glorious of ancient trees.

.

Tall nettles

2009-04-29T04:45:00.000-07:00

Tall nettles

All day long we've languished in our place,
Since we like the same view from here,
Growing in clumps, sending out shoots

The earth accommodates us all, we have space.
We are not as bitter as our yellow-headed companions,
Who vanish in a whisper, no, we remain.

As the sun sways towards the day's end
The shade offers some respite
But too soon, we cry, too soon!

We have strength in numbness
Colonizing spaces that are hostile and hard
And by remaining, know our place.

.

Taken from the collection
An ear to the earth
XIII

Blossom

2009-04-09T01:56:00.000-07:00

Blossom

Brightly coloured buds are breaking out
On the magnolia like an eruption
Of blistering sores. A gentle breeze
Peels back the writhing petals

Tearing open the maroon wound within.
Their agonizing cries go unheard
As we pause, admiringly, at
The suddenness of Spring.

.

Thoughts of an acorn upon waking in Spring

2009-04-01T04:13:00.000-07:00

The breathing wind
Ripples the moist air
And ruffles leaf's smothering covering.
We stir us from under cold slumber
To warm our backs,
Face down in earth's ochre. Alone

I carry me a weighty ancestry
Yet all that is known is still my unknown.
Is it my own turn now?
Am I ready yet?
Am I?
Ready.

Taken from the collection
An ear to the earth
IV

.

The Poem Tree - complete reading

2009-03-25T07:54:00.000-07:00

The Poem Tree - complete reading
recording lasts 45 minutes

Synopsis

It is 1844 and Joseph Tubbs, a local man, is climbing up to the top of Castle Hill, Wittenham Clumps to carve a poem into the bark of a young beech tree. As he makes his journey he reflects on the nature of the countryside and the people who live and work in his village. He meditates, too, on the nature of walking.

In parallel nature itself is given a voice and becomes aware of its own existence. As these various monologues develop they enter Joseph's conscientiousness and gradually a conversation ensues and an agreement is made with one particular tree on which Joseph will carve his poem.

As Joseph begins to carve his poem into the tree's bark he has a vision of the events that occurred on the hill many centuries before, events which resonate across the years and enter the text of his poem, touching his presence, and which subsequently touched the presence of this author some 150 years later.

.

Landscape painting V

2009-03-18T05:48:00.000-07:00

Landscape painting V

Scraping away the layers of earth's ochre and ore
From beneath the level of a long forgotten field,
Where primed and primeval origins are concealed
On a canvas under layers of pallet-knifed impasto.
Colour heaped on colour burying sketched outlines
Rendered in charcoal dug from an ancient fire pit
And found with shells bearing traces of green,
Ultramarine and gold mined from precious seams.
My brush reveals such details from among the debris.
Then, lifting from the pallet the unearthed fragments
And assembling them in situ it seems
That I touch upon a latent sense of lineage
That my painterly marks like pottery shards
Have a similar potential to awe.

.

VELIKI OTPAD - BIG RUBBISH

2009-03-06T11:14:00.000-08:00

VELIKI OTPAD - BIG RUBBISH

Anticipated like an annual migration
The nervous wait is finally broken
By the first few, exhausted arrivals
Washed up on the grassy shore

After an epic journey begun
In some distant, forgotten country
A sofa appears by the road's edge,
Its tail feathers torn, an arm seems worn.

Then, a rare balloon-backed chair
Lands awkwardly and a second leg snaps off.
Blind windows having lost their site
Stagger clumsily over the growing mound

Of carcasses. A flock of aged, bald headed Michelins
Alight in the field, their tarnished, black plumage
No longer impress the lesser breeds.
A nest of boxes stuffed to the brim

Spill their guts on impact with a downey,
White feathered fridge. By nightfall vans draw up
Furtively and with a flapping of wings
Relieve themselves of the burden of all our failures.

Then the scavengers descend in search of scraps
Sinking their hammer-claws into anything
Showing even the vaguest signs of potential life.
And when they leave they leave nothing
Nothing more than the wreckage of all our lives
Of our own pathetic journeys.

.

A London Symphony

2009-03-01T06:25:00.000-08:00

A London Symphony (1993)

It was such a familiar sound
I had heard it often, earlier today in fact
When I passed through Parliament Square.
I passed in bright sunshine and hardly noticed
That slow hollow chime above the cacophony
Of traffic and running feet.
Though it arrested my attention monetarily
I soon forgot about it.

Later at night, and at home
I turned on my radio at random
In the middle of 'A London Symphony'
And heard those very same notes
The three quarter hour rippling across the Thames
Spanning 80 or so years.
But what I heard in the music
Was no more than an echo
Of the moment Vaughan Williams stood on the Embankment
And committed that phrase to paper.
And I thought, 'What momentous events are contained
Between these two incidences
These bookends to our century.
This sound, this shared experience we both made a note of.

.

Last Weekend

2009-02-22T13:37:00.000-08:00

Last Weekend

The weather has been glorious again
But I think it will be our last weekend
Before we close the house for winter.
The last inhabitant of the oldest house
Has left.

Our kindly neighbours gave us a bottle
Of their home made brandy, and they promised
Us some meat when they slaughter their pig.
The last inhabitant of the oldest house
Has left.

We're both sad for the loss of our hedgerow
And several trees in the orchard since
The workmen widened the village road.
The last inhabitant of the oldest house
Has left.

You know that rare black squirrel I mentioned
Before, well, it's been seen again hiding
In a shadow in the tallest pine.
The last inhabitant of the oldest house
Has left.

On Sunday we wrapped up all the young
Fruit trees to protect them against frost and
Deer, before clearing the lawn of leaves.
The last inhabitant of the oldest house
Has left.

Next year we are thinking
To enlargen the garden.
The last inhabitant
Of the oldest house
Has left.

.

sitting on a tram

2009-02-09T12:47:00.000-08:00

sitting on a tram
and over hearing
a conversation
beginning, 'imam
feeling,' mixing two
languages each word
understandable
plainly and without

thought. But it was the
combination that
confused and left me
momentarily
wondering which one
was my mother tongue.

.

SPRING RITUAL from Field Songs

2009-02-01T10:06:00.000-08:00

.

Spring Ritual

Three figures approach the house all dressed
and made up and plant themselves in the garden.
The boy has a tambourine tapped to
a certain rhythm accompanying, on cue,
his two female companions,
who link their arms
and roundly dance
in one direction
then the other
back again
holding their hats
and ruffling their skirts
at every turn.

A melody is faintly audible, a soft murmur
picked up by the breeze carrying the sound
across fields and into the embryonic ears of the
soonly-sprouting corn and the blossoming buds.
They have been waiting all winter for this.
It should be a good season, they tell me.

.

from FIELDS SONGS

.

Poppies - an ear to the earth XI

2009-01-23T04:44:00.000-08:00

XI

Even we don't know
How, after long time lying
We can suddenly find ourselves
Erupting in a meadow

Suddenly appearing and
Languishing in such away
That our coloured and colonized space
Never looks simply green again.

Our scarlet splashes
So spectacular
Our papery petals
Plentiful

We carry no scent to lace the wind
But deep rooted in our heads
Lies a latent, hazy memory
Of intoxicating dreams.

.

from An ear to the earth
a collection of 14 nature poems.

.

SNOW II from Field Songs

2009-01-19T03:57:00.000-08:00

Snow II

It is dark out
Pitch black

No sound from the meadow
Except for the top
Of a plum tree

Breaking off
Burdened under
The weight of snow.

It has been falling all night
Muting all other voices.
Drifts have reached
Halfway up the front door
Lying just under the ledge
Of the windows.

The house is increasingly closed off
The neighbours are becoming
More distant.

No one stirs
It is so silent outside
Not even a dog bark.

I move closer to the fire,
I need that wood
It would be useful now.

from FIELD SONGS

.

SNOW I from Field Songs

2009-01-15T07:02:00.000-08:00

Snow I

Trudging through snow.
All has succumbed
To sleep below a
Dense, white covering

The landscape's stored energy
Is waiting for an incentive
And that particular imperative
To grow.

All has been
Woven into whiteness.
Each knotted stitch
Of thread stretches

To my foot's depression
As I struggle, cautiously
For balance
And so as not to wake

From unresolved dreams
The wilderness
And the village from
Hibernation.

taken from FIELD SONGS
published 2008

.

The Poem Tree

2009-01-14T09:50:00.000-08:00

Presentation compiled from 8mm footage and video
filmed between 1991 and 1995 showing views of
Wittenham Clumps and the beech tree known as
The Poem Tree.

I (extract)

From the small western window of their house
On the eastern edge of the village
Joseph Tubbs can watch the whole street. It is waking up.
It is still dark out. Behind the village, etched on the horizon,
Two hills are silhouetted, twin clumps
Their gentle forms agitate the skyline.

For as long as he can remember
Joseph has always kept the clumps in view
Never straying so far
As to loose sight of them.
It is there that he orientates his face
It is there that he will find his place.

Read the whole poem
http://thepoemtree.blog.hr/

As up the hill with labouring steps we trod
Where the twin clumps their sheltering branches spread
The summit gain'd, at ease reclining lay,
And all around the wide spread scene surveyed,
Point out each object and instructive tell
The various changes that the land befell
Where the low bank the country wide surrounds
That ancient earthwork form'd old Mercia's bounds.
In misty distance see the barrow heave,
There lies forgotten lonely Culchelm's grave.
Around this hill the ruthless Danes entrenched
And that fair plain with gory slaughter drenched
While at our feet, where stands that stately tower,
On days gone by up rose the Roman power.
And yonder, there where Thames' smooth waters glide,
On later days appeared monastic pride.
Within that field, where lies the grazing herd,
Hugh walls were formed, some coffins disinterred,
Such is the course of time, the wreck which fate
And awful doom award the earthly great.

Poem carved on a beech tree, Wittenham Clumps, Oxfordshire,
by Joseph Tubbs in 1844.

.

from FIELD SONGS

2009-01-13T03:28:00.000-08:00

from FIELD SONGS

Mapping the ground
In measured footsteps
Where certain stones
Mark territorial edges
Lying in places overgrown
Obscured in undergrowth
Older than ancestry
Marking boundaries
Touchstones that
Give me a grounding
To work in my field
A measured space
In which to dig.
I walk out into the field and look
With an untutored eye
Across the meadow.
I notice the lengthening shadow of trees
The soil under my feet is unknown
Where my spade wants to dig
For a moment I pause
As if trespassing on another's land
Uncertain, I've chosen a fertile plot
In which to dig.
The blade slices cleanly
Through the surface veneer
Of densely woven grasses
Down to a spade's depth
Levered and turned
And repeated
Releasing a warm smell
Of humus and promise
The earth is kind and yielding.

.

A walk between two high points, Hampshire, 1993

2009-01-12T08:02:00.000-08:00

A walk between two points
an 8mm film with narration

Video presentation compiled with narration in 2009
from film shot in 1993, Hampshire, England

A walk between two high points - A meditation on walking

From where I stand the ground slopes in all directions
I came here earlier this year while the field lay fallow
and I stood waist high in the long grass
From where I stand I have a clear view to all points of reference.

On softer ground I gather momentum and there is a rhythm
to my steps. Each step lands in the print of other footsteps and
I remember walking in other fields, along other bridleways with
muddy tracks and overhanging branches

Sunlight filters through the arc of branches, the sun feels warm
on my back. Branches drape the air across the entrance of a hollow.
The leaves are brushed by many shoulders, shredded edges.
I step through thorns into a darkening path as feet sink into the mud,
leaving an echo of my passing as I listen out for those who have gone
before me.

The air is still.
Nothing stirs.
Red flag limp amongst the verdure, no wind to disturb its sails.

Crunching gravel underfoot I lick at loose stones and follow
my shadow. My nose is filled with the scent of wood smoke,
chamomile and cow parsley. The smell of pine from a fir plantation
sweeps across the valley, a great surge of verdant miles.

Four ways meet at a five bar gate. Of the three remaining options
one must be discarded. I take the only one that takes me past
the 'acorn post'. Unlikely as it is to ever grow branches and spread
a canopy I wonder if it is merely directional or a monument, perhaps,
to the hills and valleys once covered in oak and beech. The last
surviving clumps become landmarks crowning the tops of hills.
Looking back one affords a distant view of Deacon Hill,
further off St Catherine's.

Far away a dog barks. Further still a skylark, invisible but audible.

The South Downs Way runs like an artery through the hills
of the southern counties, an ancient highway. I feel the blood
rush in my veins as I align myself through Hampshire and Sussex.

This chalk ridge terminates abruptly, not at a gate or the scar
of tarmac but at the sea. Yet, among these gentle undulations
there are thorns and nettles. Barbed wire is a hazard, much as
rocks and stones are, but these I put behind me as the clump,
the triangulation point and my thoughts all come into focus.

Ash Mizmaze - e ART h works XIV

2009-01-10T11:51:00.000-08:00

Ash Mizmaze - e ART h works XIV

Performance piece created in August 2008
as part of an on going series of art works.
Zvecaj, Croatia

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SJhKr9a4Ngg

A longer, better quality version can be found on
the above link.